"Ex Memoria"

7. The Safety of Four Walls

Chicago, Illinois – in the year 2021

For the time being, they had left Gillian Moran Fiorentino in the hands of young Chris, instructing him to stay near to but outside the room where she was hiding, and to not let anyone else near her. Already he had been exposed, so it might not have seemed like it would be necessary to leave the confused curator on her own, but any precaution could have made the difference between life and death, so there was nothing wrong in taking them.

As it was, the Doctor only had one thing on his mind, and it was to relocate whatever conversation they were about to have to a more secure and isolated location. He couldn't think of a better place than the TARDIS.

Amy and Rory would be one thing, but now there was the other pair, the Changs, and it had become an affair of five without any of them ever deciding one way or the other, so naturally they would bring them along. Going by what they had managed to see so far, it wasn't too much of a stretch, regardless of the speed with which they were shuffling on out of the museum and toward the police box, to give Mike and Tina the run down about Time Lords and space and time travel, and overall the couple seemed to be taking it well, so much so that the Doctor wondered if perhaps some of Amy or Rory's memories had found themselves wandering to the other couple's heads, installing in them a trust in him.

"Alright, inside, inside, hurry now," the Doctor motioned, nudging the doors to the blue ship open. In the short time it had taken them to walk from Gillian's hiding spot to the TARDIS, the two couples had shuffled so that Amy ushered Tina inside, followed by their respective husbands. The Doctor looked just shy of exasperation.

"So it's not just us," Amy frowned, still feeling slightly freaked out at the thought of a part of some other person's mind inside her head. "It goes both ways, doesn't it? That woman has something of mine?"

"I would imagine so," the Doctor nodded.

"Like what?" Amy asked, her brow creasing as she tried to run through her memories as though she could flip the whole of her life's experiences and find the place where some of the lights might have gone out. "I won't know what it is," she felt her anxiety rise. "She forgot her brother's allergy, she did," she pointed past the closed TARDIS doors. "Already forgot enough for a lifetime," her eyes dipped toward Rory for a second, and he moved to rejoin her side.

"I'll remind you," he promised, taking her hand. The breath she'd lost returned to her some, now that she could squeeze his hand in her own.

"This is bad, isn't it?" Mike was sharing a similar look with his wife. "The curator, she's losing her mind."

"She's losing herself," Tina gave the light correction. "Like there's not enough left of her?" she guessed.

"Might be, might not," the Doctor shrugged. Seeing the looks turned toward him, he clarified. "You find yourself realizing that some of your memories are not your own. What happens then?" No one said a word. "How is one to even know anymore, what is real, what memories truly belong to you, and which ones were introduced into your consciousness? It's in your head, as far as you know, that's where it's always been. The new memories feel as real to you as your true memories, so what's to say that the thing you have perceived as your own memory isn't actually yours? The moment you lose that certainty, that's when everything collapses, and then…" he held his hands to either side of his head. Madness. Confusion.

The picture he painted with his words was enough to leave the other four properly frightened. The painting, whatever it had done to them, had the capability to rob them of their mind, their sense of self…

"Fish fingers and custard…" Tina mumbled then, and Amy's head turned at once, having caught it.

"What did you just say?" she asked. Tina looked at her, blinking.

"I don't…"

"You said… fish fingers and custard, how would you know, I didn't tell…" Amy breathed, looking around, to Rory, who was now looking at Tina as well.

"When I met you, I…" Tina started to say, and now Amy looked to the Doctor, who was showing no sign at all of recollection. Finding Amy staring at him as wide-eyed as she did though, he stood up straight.

"What? What's the matter?"

"She's got one of your memories," Amy pointed to Tina.

"She does?" the Doctor moved up to her, brandishing his sonic screwdriver in order to examine her. "How do you know it's mine?"

"Because it's one of mine, too," Amy stated simply, and the look on her face let the Doctor know it was an important memory, something he should care about losing… He just had no idea what it was.

"If it's contagious…" Mike said, and a series of troubling thoughts got hold of him. "Who knows how far it'll go. It could bring down the government, worldwide…"

"Who would want to do that? Why?" Tina didn't like the thoughts brought on as Mike had spoken. She wasn't alone.

"It won't get that far," the Doctor vowed. "We'll control it, stop it…"

"And we'll get our memories back?" Amy asked. He turned to her, the confidence in his eyes as comforting to her as ever.

"Yes," he said.

"So what do we do first?" Rory asked. For several seconds, no one said a word, but then even if the others were thinking of their own solutions, they still looked to the Doctor first, confident that he would figure it out, save them and every other person already or eventually infected. The longer the silent stretched though, they grew nervous, and none more than the Doctor. But then he paused, and he moved to look out the TARDIS doors, then swung back inside the ship with a broad smile.

"I have an idea."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)